Expidite the expidited

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I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...
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I am back home in Duluth. I spent the last week making my way to central Finland and back again. It is time to spend time on the house and catching up. I finally plugged in the TV. I haven't missed it since I moved.

We had some productive meetings in England and Finland. We had time for a few laughs as well. It is always enlightening when I travel and spend time with folks from other cultures.

One of my colleagues from England just got back from Kiev. He brought back an informative brochure about an exciting tour opportunity of the Chernobyl power plant. Let's call it "Atomic Disaster Tourism" for now. I had to admit that I would like to go on the tour.

I think "Cramo" is a good brand name for temporary offices. My domestic flight in Finland was on an ATR-72 combo-freighter. There were 5 other passengers. There were 4 in the air crew and 4 on the ground. Jyvaskyla Finland has DIY security. I like Finland. They seem so normal until you get to know them. Let's not forget that Linus Torvalds is Finnish.











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David said…
Since I don't know any Fin better: what happens once you get to know them better?? :)
8:05 AM
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Expidite the expidited

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I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...
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